What

The Chennai Super Kings will eye a return to the top of the Pepsi IPL 2015 standings when they take on the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders in Match 28.

The Chennai Super Kings have five wins from six outings. They head into this match with the confidence of their biggest win in the IPL – by a margin of 97 runs – against Kings XI Punjab in their previous match. After the batsmen had done their job by setting KXIP a daunting target of 193, CSK’s spinners spun a web around the visitors and strangled them. Just prior to that match, CSK coach Stephen Fleming had expressed that the only thing that was yet to click for his team was the performance of the spinners. R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja answered that call, and how! They bowled their eight overs, picked up five wickets and conceded only 36 runs.

The weather gods have not been kind to the Kolkata Knight Riders. Rain played a role in KKR’s defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad at Visakhapatnam, after which the defending champions had to settle for one point, with showers washing out their home fixture against the Rajasthan Royals. The major worry for KKR, who have a 3-2 win-loss record at the moment, will concern the scrutiny around the bowling action of Sunil Narine – their biggest match-winner. It will be interesting to see how KKR tackle the Narine question; will they continue to play him in the XI, or will they take the safer route and look at other alternatives, which include the experienced chinaman bowler Brad Hogg, the young Kuldeep Yadav or the mystery spinner KC Cariappa.

When

28 April 2015, 8p.m. IST

Where

MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

The Protagonists

On the batting front, CSK will expect one of Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith or Suresh Raina to play the big innings. While the openers have contributed close to 46% of the runs scored by the CSK batsmen, Raina has recovered from a slow start and has been among the runs in the last two matches. A lot will ride on KKR’s captain and opening batsman Gautam Gambhir – for he is not only the team’s best batsman, but also the best player of spin in the batting lineup.

Among the bowlers, the focus will be on the spin pair of Ashwin and Jadeja yet again, and on the spinners KKR choose to field in their XI – for conditions at the Chepauk have historically provided plenty of assistance to the slower bowlers and it is expected to be that way again.

Contests to look-forward to

The battle between the CSK spin pair of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja against the KKR opener Gautam Gambhir promises to be interesting. The KKR left-hander has shown the inclination towards batting for major portion of the innings, and if he is able to do so, he will come up against the two CSK spinners who were on top of their game in the previous outing. Despite being an opener, Gambhir has established a reputation of being among the best players of spin bowling, and hence it will be interesting to see how he counters the threat posed by the two CSK spinners.

Morne Morkel bowling to Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina is another contest that promises to be mouth-watering. The South African will be faced with different challenges while bowling to the two batsmen; while McCullum doesn’t hesitate in playing the cut, hook or the pull, Raina’s discomfort with the short delivery is well documented.

Previous Meetings

The Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders have so far clashed 15 times previously; the former have won 9 of those contests, while the latter have won 5. One fixture, in Cape Town in IPL 2009, had to be abandoned without a ball being bowled because of poor weather.

When these two teams met last season, the honours were shared evenly. In the first meeting in Ranchi, after setting a competitive target of 149, CSK’s Ravindra Jadeja spun a web around the KKR batsmen, picking up four wickets at the cost of 12 runs to lead his team to a convincing 34-run win.

In the return fixture in Kolkata, the hosts were set a target of 155 which they chased down comfortably, with eight wickets in hand and twelve balls to spare. The KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir would steer the chase top-scoring with 67, while Shakib-al-Hasan gave the innings the finishing touches with an unbeaten 21-ball 46.

Trivia

KKR have won only two of their six matches at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai; both of those wins were in the 2012 season of the IPL.

The last six IPL matches at the MA Chidambaram Stadium have been won by the team batting first. Overall, off the 44 IPL matches played at the Chepauk, 27 have been won by the team batting first.

In his last two innings in Chennai, Brendon McCullum has scores of 100* (56 balls) and 66 (44 balls).

Chennai Super Kings are the only side to have fielded the same XI in each of their matches in Pepsi IPL 2015.

What Next

Soon after this match, CSK and KKR will both board the plane to Kolkata for the return fixture. Both teams will be seen in action at the Eden Gardens on April 30.